Cesar is tired of bailing his younger brother out of hot water so when Ferdinado asks for access to his trust fund, Cesar heads out to see who it is that has her gold digging claws in Ferndando. He finds not a statuesque model blonde, but a mannish, petite redhead. Not Ferdinado’s type and certainly not his. The two get stuck in a snowstorm. They have sex. Jude becomes pregnant and the real fireworks begin. Cesar is standard HP hero (alpha, hot, assholic). Jude isn’t a doormat but falls pretty easily for Cesar. B-

Given that the haikus have come to a close here at Dear Author, I submit my own:

Stranger danger here
As long as he gives good Os
No worries, she thinks

I stopped after the second scene. The heroine is in the sister’s apartment. Some stranger comes in and thinks she’s the heroine’s twin. He gets in bed with her and brings her to orgasm with his hand. “She had an orgasms with a complete stranger, a man who was close to her sister.” Then he handcuffs her, threatens here, and she continues to flirt with him. I had to stop reading to protect my Sony Reader.

I stopped at Chapter 11 because I just got bored with the story. There was no conflict at all. Travis was a hard working lawyer. Shanna is a devoted daughter who gives massages to anyone. She also wore gyspsy blouses (all the better to see your breasts, my child). Chapters 1-11 is full of talking and ruminating about stuff. Workaholic lawyer fiinds love in the arms of free spirit. The end.

I liked this one and not just because the secondary romance involved a hot Asian guy (unheard of for romances) but because it was just a little different. Premise is the opposite of Travis’ Appeal. In Under the Influence, overworked female business consultant finds love in the arms of a free spirit. I think where the story fell down is when the heroine, Natalie, demands some kind of showing of stability from Johnny, the bartender, and we find out that he is, of course, financially secure. Either you love him because he’s a free spirit or you don’t. The ending, in other words, seemed like a cheat to me. B-

Share this:

Like this:

Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty.
You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

Enjoy the way these reviews cut to the chase. They are exactly the way I feel some days :) Perfect! Thanks. And what’s up with no more haikus???? Hello? At least have a poll or something, this IS America!! We get a vote!!

Hahah! I persevered and finished the Karen Anders spy one. THere were many more moments like that. However, it did do a lot of set-up for other characters and I am hoping those won’t be as annoying. The romance was fine it was just the banzo plot that had me wanted to use my reader like a nerf ball!

Sponsors

Help DA Out

If you want to help DA out and you shop at one of these sites, you can use this link.to give a percentage of your purchases back to DA (usually around 7%):

Tweets

Copyright

FTC Disclaimer

We do not purchase all the books we review here. Some we receive from the authors, some we receive from the publisher, and some we receive through a third party service like Net Galley. Some books we purchase ourselves. Login